


Inkstains

by TheSleepingKnight



Series: The Typewriter Collections [2]
Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Bittersweet, Gen, Metafiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-14 04:03:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17501186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSleepingKnight/pseuds/TheSleepingKnight
Summary: Let me tell you a story.At the end of the universe, in the drain tub of the multiverse, there's a girl in a bar...





	Inkstains

Lisa had nowhere to go.

(lie)

The story was over, the curtains drawn. The universe had ran out of time, reached its bookend, yada yada ya. Her home was irradiated ash, and the other worlds didn’t hold appeal at the moment. She was tired. She didn’t want to go anywhere. Nowhere sounded nice. 

And thus, that’s where she was.

{that’s where you are}

No-where. 

At least, that was the sign outside of the bar, written in half faded words and dying ink, scratched into wood that flickered into brick and back to stone. Bartenders and waitresses flicked in and out of sight, bringing food and drink that didn’t taste like anything in particular, unless you were paying attention. People wandered in and out of the bar, dipping in and out of sight and existence. Sometimes they came through the door, sometimes they just… materialized out of thin air. Some of them looked human enough, although they came in all shapes and sizes. Some of them looked downright  _ bizarre _ and sent sharp pains to Lisa’s forehead when she tried to make out their shape. Some of them Lisa knew from her own story. Halfhearted imitations of Taylor were here often, varying in quality and likeness.

{they always manage to make you feel heartbroken all over again}

Even copies of Lisa herself showed up, as  _ weird  _ as that was. They were almost always physically identical, but if she was really that annoying to talk to, it was a wonder she hadn’t had her head blown off yet.

(who’s to say I  _ haven’t? _ )

A few Alecs, a few Brians. Bitch, too. Seeing Coil or Lung was always unpleasant, but they never talked to her or stuck around long. No one did. They couldn’t. 

{you couldn’t either. that’s the joke. get it?}   
Sometimes, when she felt brave enough or they were curious, they’d talk to her. The conversation would always end too short. Incompleted things had trouble holding together, after all. Sometimes they’d look like a real person, and others...they’d look like the malformed mash of washed out words and shattered sentences they were. Faces fracturing into writhing lines of ink that resembled insanity, bodies phasing in and out of existence as paragraphs faltered and faded without attention from their creator. The first time she had seen someone break down completely into nothingness as even the drafts faded...wasn’t pretty. But after that, it had been pretty obvious what this place was.

This was a graveyard for stories. The burial ground of the not-dead. The place where the half-finished, uncompleted things went. Those who had no where else to go, no tale to continue or those that never got to have one. Characters who had never been fully developed, things that had never been entirely integrated into the story or no longer served a purpose. She had washed up on the shores of a place that wasn’t a place at all, just a floating pile of unwritten flotsam and jetsam, swirling at the bottom of the multiverse.

She downed another drink, tasting ashes and moonbeams. Regret distilled into a glass.

“Lisa?” 

She turned on her stool to see-

Oh.

She was always struck by how  _ young  _ Taylor’s face looked. Free of the shadows and scars she would develop over the years that Lisa knew her. She still looked tired and wary, but there was something in the younger Taylors that the older ones lacked.  _ Her  _ Taylor had lost the… belief, she supposed. Faith in something, if not herself.

Had Lisa taken that from her when she had inducted her into the gang? She had been trying to  _ save  _ her. Had she just made everything worse? In some moments, it felt like she did. At the same time, Taylor had made her own choices. In the end, she had  _ chosen  _ to stick with the Undersiders.

Except she hadn’t, not truly.

Except it was all  _ his  _ fault.

“Lisa, where are we? And why do you look-”

Oh, right, she was still here. The fake. 

(everyone here is fake)

{you are real. Right? Wrong. Maybe. It doesn’t  _ matter _ , does it?}

“Older? Because I’m not your Lisa. And you’ll be gone soon enough. Please, just...leave me alone.”  She turned back to her drink. She didn’t want to talk to another Taylor right now. Seeing a hollowed out caricature of her Taylor was bad enough without it believing that  _ she  _ was the real one. 

Real. Did that word have any meaning anymore, given where she was? The junkyard of gods, littered with misfits and finished but abandoned projects? Dropped, never to be picked up again, save by whim.  

She was really getting too melodramatic. With a sigh, she turned around again. Not-Taylor was gone. Not even a whisper to mark her passing. Had she been erased, or pucked back out of the multiverse to be reworked or disassembled? Or perhaps her story had continued after all. Lisa always hoped it was the latter, but something told her that it was… unlikely that it was the case. Then she would see that Taylor again, and she had seen the same copies show up maybe a few times, if that. 

Still, hope lives eternal. Maybe. Probably not. Optimism had been beaten out of her. 

(I hadn’t dared to hope in a long time. Not since  _ her. _ )

She returned to her drink, taking another sip. This time, it was sunbeams and winter’s sunrise, which apparently tasted something like hot chocolate. 

{do you remember? You were a child when you had your first taste. Your mother served it to you, and then she smiled and called you her precious little girl. When did she stop doing that?}

She sighed again and downed the drink. She could never really get drunk, not on sensations alone. She wasn't even sure what she was drinking. There wasn’t really anything else to  _ do.  _ Except… 

“Bartender!” She yelled, raising her glass. “Another.” 

A man stepped forward, ink dribbling out from his face and over his suit. There was only a cloud of link lines and lost words blurring in an oval shape where his head should be, and his hands were smoky silhouettes of silenced paragraphs that somehow managed to grasp things. His clothes were supposed to be a white collared shirt with a classy black vest, and they did look like that— sometimes. Others, it was just a mass of words and wavy lines, a migraine inducing mess of a man. He was an amalgamation of every “bartender” character that had ever not been written, or so Lisa had theorized from staring at him till her own eyes started to blur with words. 

He made a sound that was completely unintelligible and utterly alien, like static on a tv screen, like a knife on a chalkboard— 

(like a bullet to the brain, twice)

—but somehow it reorganized itself in Lisa’s brain to mean:  _ Coming right up, Ma’am. _

“Thanks.” He nodded; or rather, the mismasia that he wore as a face dipped slightly, and he took her drink over to...somewhere, fading out of sight. He was back in a moment, a freshly filled cup of simple sensations. She raised a glass.

“To freedom.” She murmured, and took a sip. 

Vanilla. And rosemary. Strangely, the two didn’t clash. The tastes never did. Rather, they simple coexisted in different spots on her tongue, each as pleasant or awful as they would be on their own. And yet despite that, she never spat out the drink. After all, it was just about the most interesting thing in this place that didn’t come with years worth of baggage. 

She sighed, for what was… she’d lost count of how many times. It was pointless. Time didn’t move here. There wasn’t anything but the bar and… the outside. 

She didn’t like going out there. She was always scared she’d be swept away or crushed or… something would happen. The bar was like a bunker: the only truly  _ solid  _ thing around, the peace in eye of the storm. Everything else was in flux, inbetwixt real and fake, alive with ghosts. It could all crumble into the nothingness from which it was born at any moment. 

Still, what was life without a little danger?

She abandoned her drink and walked outside. 

White, the color of a page untouched, stretched out above her and below her. Fragments of a thousand things floated in the air, haphazardly stuck together like an insane child constructing a playground. All of them, abandoned places and set pieces that had never gotten finished or used. Concept art of universes. 

(a collection of lost or abandoned dreams. Are mine in here too?)

And all of them, thrown away like trash. Authors were fickle creatures, weren’t they? 

Lisa began to walk, shoes echoing into the great white expanse of emptiness as she walked down a road, street lamps flickering dimly. As she passed the lamp, she felt the downwards tug on her clothes lift slightly— gravity only  _ sort of  _ worked beyond a certain point. It was almost like someone  _ wanted  _ the floating fragments of unfinished figments to be explored.

Now, who could that be? 

She kept on walking, lazily leaping and drifting from island to island. Some of them were simple patches of greyed out rock, still leaking with ink and words. Some were more solid, pieces of princely palaces and shining silver ships, sails drifting in ghostly gusts of wind. Sometimes, when Lisa walked on them, phantom sensations danced across her skin, and she could almost smell the steel and blood in the air, feel the chill air wrap around her skin and go straight to her bones. 

(if I cut myself open, would I bleed red? or black?)

She kept on walking and hopping along the path, always remembering which direction the bar was. She had to be careful not to wander too far- getting lost out here was a horrendously bad idea. 

Then again, danger was rather the point, wasn’t it? To feel an echo of the old rush, to relive, for a moment, what it was like with  _ her…  _

But then those moments where never really theirs, were they? There was always an audience, outside observers peering into their most private moments. And then, of course, there was  _ him,  _ feeding them thoughts and actions. Still, they had put on quite a show. 

And now… 

Now, hopefully, she was in a better place. Beyond the Man with a Typewriter, beyond doubt and fear and death. 

Where did people go when they reached their happy ending? 

{if you could call it that. two shots to the head and a world away.}

Lisa sat down on the tip of a pirate ship’s mast, staring off into the infinite horizon. She glanced down, and saw only that pure  _ white _ through the cracks of the fragments of forgotten things. White like an unbroken light, white like an unwritten word.

{you’re looking down, and you see nothing but nothingness, and you ask yourself: who are you, in all of this? what are you? a human being or a creation of an uncaring god? did knowing what you were change the fact that you were just a collage of words, compressed into the shape of a girl? you didn’t know. for the first time, you don't know anything. and it’s killing you.}

She faintly felt the sharp spray of sea-salt kiss her lips, like the memory of a half-forgotten dream. She liked walking out to this ship. There was something  _ more  _ to it than the others, stronger. The pieces and places that cobbled together to form this strange world carried the memories of their unfinished stories with them. Up here, near the mast, she could faintly feel the rush of stardust and solar winds, pushing the ship through the galaxy, through cosmic storms and asteroid fields and stranger places still. In the hull, she remembered things she’d never done, talking with a crew of thousands, each one a refugee from worlds that had gone utterly mad. She remembered dreaming, dreaming of a Star going out, dreaming and hoping and  _ wanting  _ it to go out so all could be made right again, and then— 

Nothing, because this ship had never set sail. She’d never done any of it. It had never happened. But the echoes of what had been imagined lingered, like the embers after a fire. 

It was a true ghost ship. The crew had never truly existed. 

Lisa snatched a loose piece of wood from the hull. There was another reason she came out to this derelict ship, away from prying eyes that wept with ink. It was so she could practice in secret. 

She held it out, hands rubbing together as she held the plank like it was a short staff. Staff.

Staff. 

“Staff.” She murmured out loud, tasting the word on her lips, gripping the driftwood tight— 

And moved her hands. 

Underneath the pressure of her fingers, the plank began to  _ liquify,  _ solid brown oak darkening and collapsing into the ink that made up the universe. The words became visible, drifting in the ink like specters in the night. Lisa continued to move her hands, shaping the rapidly transforming plank into the image she had in her mind, and even as her hands moved, the redesigned plank began to reform into a different piece of wood. She stretched it out until the tip nearly reached her head, and then let her other hand drop, allowing her creation to solidify. 

She now held a  _ Staff,  _ and the word hummed and sang within her new weapon. 

She had discovered she could do this only a little while ago, when she had dared to venture onto one of the less… stable, islands. There, words and ink ran like water, and when she had grasped some of it in her hand, and though about something solid to stand on...well, she was suddenly holding a brick. Further experimentation had shown that she could reshape other items as well. The limit only seemed to be the amount of material she was working with and what she was turning it into. Turning driftwood into a staff was easy— same material, and a staff had really only one component to it. Something like a gun, with multiple parts and complicated mechanics… well, Lisa’s hollow gun was still somewhere in this white space, probably. She had chucked it over the side in annoyance. 

When she had first discovered what she could do here, she was overjoyed. She had felt powerful. She had felt strong. She had felt in control. 

(I had felt like god.)

She’d run around, trying to fix things up as best she could. Made anything that came to mind that she could make. She’d gone a little crazy, honestly. Powers came with an addictive rush to keep using them, and this newfound one was no exception. Creation itself was beyond anything she’d ever dreamed of having.

{sometimes you’d lie awake at night, wondering what it was like to fly, or to be able to cross oceans in a blink, or to have gravity itself bend to your will. did they feel like the gods the rest of the world saw them as? through your own revelation, you’d found the answer. yes. and no.} 

Her crash came when she realized something. Despite that all that power… she was still stuck here. Even if she fixed the roads, fixed the ships, fixed the castles, fixed everything… there was  _ nowhere to go.  _ It wasn’t as simple as just walking out of here, this place went on forever. And she had no idea how to build or make anything that would create some kind of portal or wormhole out of here. 

So she was still stuck here, just with a few new tricks to keep her from getting too bored. 

She stepped forward to—

(No. You know what? Enough of this. It’s been dragged out long enough.)

“Are you going to show yourself?” She asked, knowing she would be heard. “Or are you going to make me monologue until my tongue falls out?” 

His appearance wasn’t anything noteworthy. There were no grand thunderclaps or choirs. The sky did not split, the oceans did not boil, the ground did not shake. Nothing so sanctimonious. 

One moment, nothing. The next, he was simply  _ there _ , walking next to her. 

The Man with the Typewriter. 

She wasn’t sure what she had expected  _ him  _ to look like. Like some towering colossus teeming with words and ink, maybe. Or perhaps something like a monster, some sneering, cruel tyrant with strings to strangle her with and make her dance. 

She would have almost preferred that. It would have made things simpler.

Instead she got a boy. Not a normal looking one, however.  He was dressed in old-fashioned clothes like something out of the victorian era, black suit on white collared shirt. Like words on a page. He was wrapped in a cloak that looked like there were stars trapped inside it, singing and dancing and brimming with possibilities. His eyes were black pits of ink, and light shone dimly from somewhere inside, little lanterns of life. His hair was raven black, and little drops of darkness dripped off it, floating up into the empty sky. His stance was open and relaxed, and he looked… 

So sad. 

(he’s here. he’s actually here. finally.)

“Sorry.” He apologized, his voice sounding like the most average one in the world. “I’m a little shy.” He gave Lisa a small, timid smile. 

Lisa hit him as hard as she could. 

He fell to the ground with a solid  _ thud, _ and dear  _ god  _ that felt satisfying.

“...I suppose I should have expected that.” He admitted, sprawled on the ship’s deck. “And it’s not like it was undeserving.”

“You motherfucker.” Lisa spat, and for the first time in her life she understood the meaning of  _ shaking with anger.  _ Her hands trembled violently as the blood rushed to her head. “You absolute piece of shit. I’m going to kill you. I’m going to kill you.”

“Would it make you feel better?” The boy’s question was asked so politely it just made her even more furious. “This is just a… apparition, you might say. It’s how I imagine myself in this space.” He had the audacity to look sheepish. “A bit egotistical, but… well, it’s not like it’s hurting anyone. And I suppose I  _ am  _ like him, in this place.” 

“You wouldn’t even feel pain, would you?” Lisa asked, ignoring his ramblings in favor of glaring down at him. “You didn’t feel anything just now.” There wasn’t even a mark on his face. 

“No.” He responded, almost sounding sorry. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t. I don’t want to, so I won’t. That’s how things work when you’re the author.” 

“No fucking point to killing you then, is there? You’d just turn up a second later.”  

“Just because I’d have another body to jump to,” he said, and she hated how  _ reasonable  _ he sounded, “doesn’t mean there wouldn’t be a point. If it would make you feel better, then I’d be happy to—”

“ _ Shut up!”  _ Lisa screamed, throwing her staff down and relishing the  _ smack  _ of wood clashing against wood. “You don’t get to be concerned about my wellbeing! You don’t get to  _ care  _ about me! Not after what you did! Not after what you put me through! It was  _ fucking torture!  _ Everyday! Being mastered and having no way to fight back! I didn’t even know if any of my thoughts were even mine or just something  _ you  _ were making me think!  _ You killed my friends! I hate you!”  _ The only reason she stopped was the need to take a breath, unwanted tears springing to her eyes. 

The bastard looked miserable. Good.

“I’m sorry.” He mumbled, looking well and truly ashamed of himself. The sight brought a savage pleasure. “For what’s it's worth, I didn’t write that story. Someone else did. I’m just the guy who made your self aware and brought you here. But… you probably would have been better off not knowing, huh?” He smiled bitterly. “Ignorance is bliss.” 

“Fuck you and fuck your apologies.” Lisa snapped, rubbing at her eyes. “Go away.” 

“You  _ wanted  _ to talk.” He reminded her. “I’m trying to help you.”

“A little late for that, pal. You can’t just show up saying you’re on my side when you ruined my life. I just wanted to hit you. Leave me alone.”

He just looked… disappointed, the lights in his eyes going dim.

“As you wish.” He murmured.

And then with another blink, he was gone.

Good  _ fucking  _ riddance.

* * *

 

Lisa was bored. Again.

Nothing ever fucking  _ happened  _ in this place. There was just...words. That’s all anything was, just  _ words. _ She’d tried making more junk to keep her entertained, but even being able to reshape matter could only be fun so many times before you started to wonder what you were going to  _ do  _ with it all. She couldn’t even  _ leave. _

It was pointless.

(everything I’ve ever done. pointless.)

“I wouldn’t say that.” 

Oh. Fucking fantastic.

His lantern-like eyes gleamed at her. “You’re learning how to warp reality to your will. That’s something, isn’t it? It’s useful.”

“If you’re expecting a  _ thank you _ , you’re insane.” She bit out. “I thought I told you to fuck off.”

“That you did.” He agreed, wrapping his cloak around himself. “I also know you’re lonely.”

“I’ll take being lonely over  _ you. _ ” She snarled. 

The Man with a Typewriter had the arrogance to look hurt. 

“As you wish.”

Gone. Back to silence. 

{despite yourself, you miss hearing a different voice}

* * *

 

She had managed to make a bow. She couldn’t aim for shit, but just shooting at things was kind of fun...if pulling back the drawstring wasn’t so hard. She’d gained a new level of appreciation for archers. This was far more difficult than it looked. 

“Most things are, I find. Especially writing.” 

“Jesus christ.” Lisa groaned, lowering the bow. “Take a hint.”

He just stared back at her, looking like someone had just kicked his puppy or told him his mother died. Did he have a mother?

“I did.” He murmured. “She would have liked you.” 

“Stop reading my mind.” Lisa said, ignoring the slight tightness in her throat. 

(he shouldn’t be allowed to have a family)

He frowned, and made a gesture with his hand. Lisa blinked. What had that been about?

“Keeping your thoughts from escaping. This is supposed to be in third person, after all. Here, Thought and narration tend to kind of bleed into the other, and the things you were thinking were becoming...more then thoughts.” 

Oh, great. He could just casually manipulate her very thoughts. Of course he could, he was the author. Fucking fantastic. 

“Fun. I don’t care. Leave me alone.” 

“Have you ever stopped to consider that I can’t?” He asked, tone surprisingly soft. 

“You were.” Lisa pointed out. _ You left me alone to rot in this place for god knows how long. _

“I was hiding in the narrative, yes. Your narrative. But I’m always here, in a way. Physically manifesting is a new thing for me.” 

“Go back to that, then. Just looking at you pisses me off.”   
“Lisa, I  _ need  _ to talk to you. And you need to talk to me.” He insisted, a hint of urgency slipping into his voice. 

“Oh, do I?” She snapped, raising the bow and launching another arrow at a far off platform.

“I’ve no desire to see you go mad.” He stated simply. 

Lisa’s blood ran cold.

“What?”

“What do you think will happen if I abandon you entirely?” He asked. “Do you really want to become like those hollowed out husks in the bar? Faceless, faulty in form and memory, with no purpose or passions left?” 

For a split second, Lisa imagined it. Being reduced to an angry, screaming mess of ink and scrawled out sentences, howling in statistic as she stumbled through a wasteland of words, trying to remember who she was.   
Maybe...maybe  _ this  _ wasn’t too bad, if that was the alternative. 

“Maybe I would choose that, just to spite you.” Lisa threatened, shoving down the sinking feeling in her gut.

“Maybe you would.” He agreed. “But you won’t. You value yourself too much to commit suicide out of mere spite.” 

Huh. That’s what it was like being on the receiving end of that. It  _ was  _ infuriating. Lisa looked back at the boy and smiled her sharpest smile. 

“You sure about that?” Even to her, the retort sounded weak.

“Yes.” He said. “Even if I couldn’t simply stop you.”

“Then why are you allowing me to mouth off to you?” She asked.

“I feel like you deserve it. And I need to talk to you, and railroading your dialogue doesn’t seem like it would be inductive to having a conversation.” 

Lisa sighed, and dropped the bow. She was tired.

“Fine. Talk. Whatever. I don’t care.” 

“There’s a new story being written.” He said, his eyes going bright. “A sequel to the original. And you’re in it.”

_ That  _ got Lisa’s attention. A sequel would mean that she would see  _ her  _ again, right? But if that was true, then why was she still—

“Here? I…pulled you here. But you’re also there. It’s all a little complicated. Even I don’t pretend to understand all of it. But I’m digressing. As I said before, I’m not your original author.  _ He’s  _ much better at me than this. I’m still learning.”

That...made a certain amount of sense. There was a time when she  _ hadn’t  _ known, wasn’t there? And before that… She… didn’t quite remember what it had been like, not knowing what her reality really was. Didn’t matter. She was still pissed. 

“Great. Send him a complaint, would you? Tell him to leave me and  _ her _ the fuck alone and that he’s a sick sadist.” 

“ _ Lisa.”  _ The boy’s tone was pleading. 

“What?” She snapped. “I’m a little upset over— scratch that, I’m  _ really upset  _ over a lot of things. I think I’m entitled to some peace.”

“It’s not about entitlement, Lisa.” He said softly. “It’s not about deserving or earning. It’s about the story. It’s always about the story.”

“So I don’t matter?” Lisa demanded, stepping towards him. “Do none of you high and mighty authors actually care about any of us?” 

“I don’t speak for him,” the boy said softly, “but I do care about you, Lisa. It’s insanity, but I do. It’s why you’re here. It’s why we can talk like this. It’s why you’re aware of any of this at all.”

“ _ Why?”  _ And there was the question that had been burning on the tip of her tongue for years, that had been her last lingering thought every time she went to sleep. “Why do you care? Why did you do this to me?”

The boy looked at her, and in those lights for eyes, she could see a thousand things.

“Because I love you.” He admitted, and the world went sideways with those four simple words.

How could he even  _ claim  _ to love her? After all he did to her, how could he even  _ say  _ that? It didn’t make any sense.

“Because I love your character. I love writing you. And Taylor. And the others. You all gave me hope in a time I had none, and so I write because— because I enjoy writing about you. It’s as simple as that.” 

Oh. She’d said that out loud. Damn it. 

“Yeah, well, I hate it. Stop.” Why was her face wet? She shouldn’t be crying. She was—

She was Tattletale. She didn’t cry. She made other people do that. 

“I don’t think I will.” His tone sounded hopelessly apologetic. “For what it’s worth, I  _ am  _ sorry.” 

“Do you have— have any idea what it’s like, to be constantly _edited?_ ” Lisa demanded, words spilling out of her, tumbling over each other in a rush to find release. “It’s… it’s terrifying. You make us dance, like puppets on strings. And half the time, you bastards just throw us down _here,_ where sometimes we don’t even have a _face_ because you were too _lazy_ to finish us. You create us, you claim to love us, and then you make us fight and suffer and die for your entertainment and then dump us or abandon us when you’re tired of your toys. You’re all _awful._ And you need to stop. Leave all of us alone.” She wished she would stop tearing up, but there was years worth of emotions escaping their bottles, and she couldn’t keep in it anymore. 

“Lisa, please try to understand.” The boy pleaded. “It’s  _ hard  _ to think about you all as having thoughts and feelings of your own. You’re…. you’re words on a page, most of the time, to most people. You come alive in our minds and in our hearts, but we write your adventures to serve a purpose. It’s not about making you happy, it’s about—”

“The story. Yeah. That’s what you keep saying. Well I say that’s  _ bullshit.  _ Did you ever stop to think that maybe your stupid little books were hurting people? Hurting entire  _ worlds? _ ”

“Every action a human being makes could possibly hurt someone.” He protested. “I can’t stop living because I’m afraid of hurting someone. Pain is a part of life. You’d know that better than most.”

Lisa didn’t have a good answer to that. “Look this— this is going nowhere.” She said, wiping away tears, willing her voice to still. “Say what you were going to say and leave me alone.” 

“Right. Sorry, I go on tangents easily.” He murmured. “Anyway, sequel. That’s a thing that’s happening. I’m here to offer you a deal.”

“Oh, devil’s bargains.” Lisa drawled, throat still feeling thick and constrained. “I love these. Lemme guess, mastering me wasn’t enough, you want ownership of my soul now?”

“No.” He said, and his face looked sad. “I’m asking if you want to continue.”

...What?

“Your original author is writing a story.” He repeated. “You’ll start...remembering, soon enough, I think. I doubt it’s going to be a happy tale for you, but it’s going to happen no matter what I do. I’m asking if you want to stay here and remember, or if you want to...not be, anymore.” 

“I— are you asking me if I want to die?” Lisa asked, incredulity making her voice go quiet with shock.

“You’ve just rather verbosely explained to me how everything I did was torture to you.” He sound so  _ pitiable. _ It wasn’t fair for him to have emotions. He was supposed to be a monster. He  _ was  _ a monster. He was… “And apparently, you hate being here, the place where technically, you’re free. What other options are there? If I leave you entirely, you’ll become like  _ them.  _ Alone, abandoned. Dead but not dead. An unfinished thing. An eternity of questions and uncertainty. I don’t want to do that to you. If you let me write you an ending, you’ll be at peace, at least. Isn’t that what you want?” He looked straight into her eyes, pain as clear as day on his face. “What do you  _ want,  _ Lisa Wilbourn?” 

“I…” 

She didn’t know. What kind of choice was that? Death, slavery without knowing it, or being left here to rot and wither? 

“Can’t you… write me a happy ending?” she asked, words getting stuck in her throat, perhaps literally.

“I’m not your original author.” The boy repeated, tone still miserable. “Even if I rebuilt all the worlds that Scion destroyed, even if I brought Regent and Brian back to life, even if I returned Taylor to you… they wouldn’t be the originals. And you’d know it. They’d be as fake as everything else I made. You’d go insane.” 

“Some god you are.” She spat, wiping away more tears. “Can’t even resurrect the dead properly.”

“I know. I’m pretty useless. Sorry.” 

“Stop apologizing, damn it. You’re supposed to be monstrous.”

“Am I not?” He asked, and dear god, he sounded just as lost as she was. She hated that.

“No. Just a stupid, misguided asshole.” She bit out. 

“Fair enough.” He murmured, staring off into the white horizon. 

“What…” Lisa started, stopping to fully formulate her thoughts. “What if I just… stayed here, but didn’t fade away?”   


“That would require me to keep writing you or finish your story. My version of your story, anyway. I thought you didn’t want that.”   


“Well, I definitely don’t want to die. And you said I have free will here.”

“As close as to what I can give you. I’m doing my best to let you speak how you would.”   


“Gee, thanks.” She muttered. “I love being mastered constantly.”    


“Lisa, the very act of writing you means that I am, on some level, dictating what you’d say. I can’t help it.”

“It still sucks for me.”

“I know. That’s why I’m trying to be accommodating.” He clarified 

“So even if I wanted a glass of orange juice or something, it’d be because you  _ wanted  _ me to have orange juice?” She asked. There were so many questions and so little time… 

“It’d be more accurate to say because I  _ think  _ you’d want orange juice.” He replied. “I do know you fairly well at this point, however. You shouldn’t be able to tell the difference between your thoughts and...well, what I think you’d think. To be entirely honest, I’m not sure there  _ is  _ a difference.” 

Ah, there it was. That lovely teeming pit of nausea in her stomach from the horror of knowing that every aspect of her was being constantly controlled. She’d almost missed it. Was the nausea his fault as well? Bastard. 

“Thank you for all the existential crises I’ve had. And am going to have.” She muttered. 

“My apologies. But it’s true, here in this place, you have as much free will as can be granted. I’m still writing you, but...since there’s no story here, it’s just…  _ you.” _

Well… okay then.” She swallowed. “If… if you’re not going to leave me alone, then I’m going to stay here, for a while longer. _But_ — I want… I _need_ something to do. Anything. I’ll go insane with boredom.” 

“I’ll...do my best to come up with something.” The boy promised. “Are you sure? You could have an ending, and then… go wherever it is that those who have a finished story go. I’m sure it’s a better place than this.”    


“No. Because I’m not done yet.” She said, wiping the remnants of tears from her face. “I’m not done until I’ve seen it.”

“Seen what?”

“Everything.” She responded, looking at the Man with a Typewriter dead in the eye. “If I’m going to be your muse… you better give me one hell of an adventure.” She felt an old grin rise on her face. Defiance felt amazing. “You know what you’re going to do? You’re going to write me a story like there’s never been, ever. And once I’m satisfied with my life, once I’ve been on enough adventures to put all the others to shame, I’m going to go beyond your reach, and I'm going to be  _ happy.  _ And no one will be able to do a damn thing about it.” She crossed her arms. “So? What’s it gonna be, Typewriter Man?”

He looked shocked for a moment.

And then he  _ smiled.  _

“I’m glad I met, you Lisa Wilbourne. And I think that can be arranged.” 

“So… now what?” She asked.

“Now?” He stepped forward and held out his hand. “Now, you rest. And you prepare.”

“Prepare for what?” Lisa asked as his hand touched her forehead.   
“For the  _ story.”  _ He murmured. “It’s all about the story. Now  _ listen.”  _

And then there was a surge of  _ something,  _ and then—

Peace. 

* * *

 

_ Let me tell you a story.  _

_ At the end of the universe, there’s a bar called No-Where. And inside, there’s a girl who knows everything about everyone who’s ever walked in. And she’ll tell you about an impossible, amazing, horrifying Truth. And then she’ll slide you a drink and say that in the end, it doesn’t really matter. You have to live your life how you’ll live it, regardless of men with typewriters. And then you’ll ask her while she’s there. And she’ll say: _

**_I’m waiting. I’m waiting to see everything._ **

_ And then you’ll wake, and the memory will pass like a fleeting shadow. _

_ But she will still be there, at the bar at the end of the universe, and she will never give up. Because she is not done yet. _

_ This is the story of Lisa Wilbourn, and it is unfinished.  _

_ For now.  
_

**Author's Note:**

> Well, here's something I'd never thought I'd actually write. Did a bit of experimenting with this one- and I certainly didn't plan to show up in it, but I though Lisa deserved a little face to face. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy.


End file.
